Weight Scale

Vegan Weight Loss

Weight-Scale Some people want to lose weight, so they become vegan. Weight loss is possible. When Jane and I started on our vegan journey, we both effortlessly lost weight. I dropped twenty pounds in 5 months, and she lost 11. These numbers may not be staggering, but we didn’t do anything else. We simply went from eating a slightly healthier than average American diet, to a vegan dietir?t=veganbits 20&l=ur2&o=1. No calorie-counting, no increase in exercise (although we really need to work on that). Not bad for no effort. We’d probably still be losing a bit of weight if Jane wasn’t finding new and incredible vegan desserts to make like the vegan danish we had this past weekend.

While Jane was poking around on the internet today, she ran across a post entitled, “Lose Weight While Spending Less on Food and Exercise.” She shared it with me and I thought, who doesn’t want that? So I figured I’d blog about it too.

The author writes that we should:

  • Eschew diet pills / diet drinks — Jane and I always laugh at those commercials. If you read the fine print, it always says “Combined with a healthy diet and exercise program, (insert product name here) will help you to lose weight.” Hmmm, won’t the diet and exercise do that without the pills?
  • Buy only what you will eat — So, I guess this means no more beets for us! (I confessed yesterday, that we keep buying beets, but Jane can’t bring herself to prepare them, so they usually wind up in the compost bin after a tour of our refrigerator.)
  • Eat your heaviest meal in the morning and your lightest at night. — Tough to do since most of us prepare or go out and eat a hearty dinner.
  • Eat smaller portions — In other words, don’t supersize me.
  • Chew slowly and carefully — When I was a child, my mom and I used to watch The Bob Newhart Show. There was one episode where he was talking about chewing food. I don’t know why this is still stuck in my head (especially since I probably couldn’t tell you anything about any other episode), but here goes… “32 chews keeps your tummy from danger, then you can stay up and watch the long ranger.” That should keep you motivated!
  • Control your appetite with more physical activity — um, that would mean getting up from behind the computer occasionally.
  • Dilute your fruit juices — my mom always did this.
  • Drink more water — Water is the most consumed beverage in our household, so that’s not really a problem for us. If you’re not a huge fan, try putting a slice of citrus in your water. That will make it more palatable.
  • Avoid or control the consumption of excessive alcohol, due to its caloric content. As a reminder, some alcohol is not vegan (certain beers and wines, due to the manner in which it they are manufactured, are not vegan.)
  • Avoid or control the consumption of processed and junk food — Well, we know that junk food is bad for you, it just tastes so damned good (until you wean yourself from it).

I would like to add another point:

  • Eschew animal products. Plant-based foods tend to cost less than animal-based foods, and tend to have fewer calories and fat too.

Don’t get me wrong, you can certainly gain weight eating vegan, but if you eat a healthy vegan dietir?t=veganbits 20&l=ur2&o=1 like we are, the weight can just fall off. And you can save money at the same time (unless you’ve been subsisting on happy meals or other junk foods). Eat food that is healthy and vegan. Weight loss happens almost without your trying. Talk about a win-win.